MAOIST WAVE IN CHINA: SUMMATIONS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS The Maoist revolution in China was part of the second great wave of sustained revolution. This revolutionary wave occurred during an economic crisis and after World War 2. The European imperialist powers had weakened each other by going to war with each other. This created an opening for making revolution in the colonies and neocolonies. National liberation movements seeking independence from European and American imperialism popped up all over the world. Often, social revolution, including communist-led social revolution, piggybacked on top of these national liberation movements. Of all of these, the Maoist revolution in China was the most significant. It involved a quarter of the world’s population. And its social revolution was the most radical. The Maoists sought to reorganize society at the deepest levels in order to actually reach communism. The Maoist revolution in China was a long and bloody one with many twists and turns. It lasted over half a century. At its peak, during the Cultural Revolutionary years, the Maoist revolution represented the furthest advance toward communism in human history. In the early part of the twentieth century, China was in chaos. Semi-feudalism was the dominant mode of production. Poverty was everywhere. The majority of Chinese were destitute, impoverished peasants. Slavery was still practiced. Many Chinese lived as European serfs once had. Famines were common. Epidemics swept the country. There was little or no healthcare for the majority of Chinese. Women were treated as property. Women’s feet were often crippled in order to make them more easily controlled by men. China was in a dark age. China’s coast had been carved up by competing imperialist powers who had occupied its ports. The central government was weak. Warlords and opium traffickers were in constant civil war with each other. The imperialists fueled these wars in order to divide and conquer. In 1937, imperial Japan invaded and occupied China. The Chinese communists were attacked on all sides. They were attacked by the anti-communist state. They were attacked by the warlords and feudalists. They were attacked by the imperialists, especially the Japanese. It was by taking up the national banner that the communists were able to rally the people to their cause. The communists raised the national banner against the “two mountains” of imperialism and feudalism. The communists organized a people’s army and seized power in the countryside. They created New Power. They created their own society and state in the remote countrysides and mountains. They created red zones. The communists fought the imperialists. They fought the feudal warlords. The communists carried out land reform. They began the liberation of women. They carried out New Democratic revolution, the first stage of China’s revolution. They created a new system everywhere they went. They slowly expanded their New Power. The people’s war went from the countryside to surround China’s cities. It was in 1949 that the communists drove the imperialists and their lackeys from the mainland. It was on October 1st, 1949 that Mao declared “China has stood up” at Tiananmen. Mao declared the birth of the People’s Republic of China. China’s revolution went through many phases. The first phase was the New Democratic revolution. This phase aimed at getting rid of the “two mountains” of feudalism and imperialism. It focused on land reform, national development, national unity, creating a functioning society, creating the beginnings of democratic control, creating a central state, beginning the liberation of women, public education, healthcare, literacy, etc. Limited capitalism, as a method of national development, still existed during New Democracy. The New Democratic Revolution laid the groundwork for further, socialist social transformation. The New Democratic Revolution began to phase into socialist construction after 1949, into the 1950s. Socialist construction meant even greater collectivization of the productive forces. It meant collectivizing agriculture and industry. It meant putting the workers in command. It meant creating more and more revolutionary culture in place of old culture. It means more class struggle. It means trying to move toward communism. The two major efforts at trying to push to a higher level of socialism were the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution. The Maoists sought to reorganize Chinese society at the deepest level. They saw the mistakes that the Soviets had made by putting too much emphasis on technology, the productive forces. Maoists saw revolution as a train on two tracks: development of the productive forces and reorganization of power. Of these, the latter was principal for the Maoists. They adopted a more “bottom up,” people-power approach. They sought to unleash the masses to build socialism by using mass campaigns and mass line. The Maoist model was one that allowed for more mass spontaneity and more creativity. They sought to reorganize all of society into people’s communes. These communes would be the basic unit of society, eventually replacing the central state apparatus. These communes were to be as self-sufficient and as sustainable as possible. They would produce their own food and they would have their own industry. Housework and traditional women’s work was to be phased out. For example, the people’s communes sought to have community meals in public dining halls, thus shifting “women’s work” onto the collective. In the communes, people strove to be equals. Even most teens could participate politically in communes. Thus the communes sought to encourage youth liberation and youth participation in politics. Later, during the Cultural Revolution, even young teens and children participated in politics at various levels. Education was combined with work in the communes just as the People’s Liberation Army combined its training with economic work and ideological work. These communes were created during the Great Leap, but they ran into problems due to opposition, sabotage and mismanagement. A food crisis resulted from human errors and natural disasters. This resulted in a temporary defeat for the Maoists. After the Great Leap, Maoist power waned. A new capitalist class, a revisionist group, began to rise to displace the Maoists. They sought to reverse socialist construction and dismantle the people’s communes. As a result, the Maoists launched the Cultural Revolution in 1965. Mao’s general Lin Biao took control of the People’s Liberation Army and turned it into a bastion of communist thought. Lin Biao advocated a global people’s war from the global countryside to surround the global cities, from poor to rich countries. Mao then called on the students to rise up and rebel against their teachers and overthrow those in the Communist Party and state who were betraying the revolution. Red guard students and rebel workers took to the streets. They took over whole cities. They formed huge armies to protect socialism. For a moment, they were able to consolidate socialist power at even a higher level with the help of Lin Biao’s People’s Liberation Army. The communes were defended. More collectivization occurred. A whole new culture of revolution was promoted. Big philosophical debates were carried out in the streets and in the media. All of society was aspiring to reach communism. Unfortunately, it did not last. Mao shifted rightward and allowed the revisionists to launch their offensive against the left. Mao, who was old and sick, began slipping ever rightward. The revisionists struck back hard. The revisionists were able to kill and discredit Lin Biao, who had been the voice and face of the Cultural Revolution and global people’s war. The revisionists seized command of the People’s Liberation Army. Throughout the 1970s, Mao presided over a regime that systematically moved toward the restoration of capitalism. The regime in the 1970s even began aligning with the United States in world affairs. Mao hoped to have a negotiated settlement between the revisionists and the remaining Maoists, but the revisionists were easily able to sweep away the remaining Maoists, the so-called “Gang of Four,” shortly after Mao died in September of 1976. Today’s capitalism in China was born when the right and revisionists struck against Lin Biao. Today’s China is thoroughly capitalist. The economies of China and the Unites States are intertwined. The China of today puts its children in sweatshops to produce toys for children in the United States. It guns down its striking workers so that value continues to flow out of China to the United States and the First World. It guns down its students who stand up to question its course. The Chinese state is an integral part of the capitalist-imperialist system. The so-called Chinese Communist Party recently made a pronouncement that it is no longer a “revolutionary party,” but a “ruling party.” Mao said that it will take many revolutions to reach communism in China. He is correct. China needs revolution today. China needs Leading Light Communism. llco.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/LL4.pdf
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 06:18:13 +0000
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